The moral neoliberal : welfare and citizenship in Italy / Andrea Muehlebach.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Muehlebach, Andrea Karin.

Series:

Chicago studies in practices of meaning.

Chicago studies in practices of meaning

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Welfare state--Italy.

Welfare state.

Social service--Italy.

Social service.

Italy--Social conditions--21st century.

Italy.

Italy--Politics and government--21st century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (308 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2012.

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Morality is often imagined to be at odds with capitalism and its focus on the bottom line, but in The Moral Neoliberal morality is shown as the opposite: an indispensible tool for capitalist transformation. Set within the shifting landscape of neoliberal welfare reform in the Lombardy region of Italy, Andrea Muehlebach tracks the phenomenal rise of voluntarism in the wake of the state's withdrawal of social service programs. Using anthropological tools, she shows how socialist volunteers are interpreting their unwaged labor as an expression of social solidarity, with Catholic volunteers thinking of theirs as an expression of charity and love. Such interpretations pave the way for a mass mobilization of an ethical citizenry that is put to work by the state. Visiting several sites across the region, from Milanese high schools to the offices of state social workers to the homes of the needy, Muehlebach mounts a powerful argument that the neoliberal state nurtures selflessness in order to cement some of its most controversial reforms. At the same time, she also shows how the insertion of such an anticapitalist narrative into the heart of neoliberalization can have unintended consequences.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. An Opulence of Virtue

2. Ethical Citizenship

3. Consecrations: From Welfare State to Welfare Community

4. The Production of Compassion

5. An Age Full of Virtue

6. Aftereffects of Utopian Practice

7. The Private Face of Privatization

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9786613587015

9781280491788

1280491787

9780226545417

0226545415

OCLC:

793511130